McCoy Tyner has left us, aged 81

All the things he did with John Coltrane are great, but so are his solo albums.

Had a friendly discussion with him sometime in the early '90s at Yoshi's in Oakland, after his show. McCoy looked rather imposing to me always, but he was an extremely relaxed and pleasant person, and he actually showed me some of the piano technique. I'd wanted to know about those "blocks of notes" he described in interviews so he played me some basics, explaining how it works, sitting next to me on the piano bench.